Thermoformed toy building plate

ABSTRACT

A vacuum-shaped toy building plate with a substantially plane building surface arranged with coupling means for being interconnected with toy building elements having complementary coupling means. The toy building plate is also provided with downwardly protruding spacer elements intended for imparting to said toy building plate a certain height. Along its periphery the toy building plate is also provided with a downwardly protruding flange having the same downward extent as said spacer elements.

The invention relates to a vacuum-shaped toy building plate with asubstantially plane building surface provided with coupling means forbeing interconnected with toy building elements with complementarycoupling means, said toy building plate also being provided withdownwardly protruding spacer elements in the form of respective skirtswhich are, at their downmost ends, closed and, at their uppermost ends,open for imparting a certain height to said toy building plate.

Vacuum-shaped toy building plates are generally known in a form wheremost often they have a plane underside and a top surface provided withcoupling means, e.g. in the form of cylindrical coupling studs. Duringplay, these toy building plates are positioned on a plane support whilebeing used as a basis for the construction of more comprehensivestructures consisting of further toy building elements.

The plates are made of a comparatively readily bendable plasticsmaterial which is suitable for vacuum-shaping and since they are madewith a comparatively small material thickness in order to maintainadequate tolerance on the coupling studs, the finished plates are alsoreadily bendable.

Vacuum-shaping is a comparatively inexpensive manufacturing method andit is desired to be able to employ such process for the manufacture toybuilding plates which do not only consist of a plane surface withupwardly protruding coupling studs but also have a certain height andrigidity. Such toy building plates would provide a good alternative orsupplement to other toy building elements that are typically made byinjection moulding.

DK-B-129,080 teaches a toy building plate made of a thin plasticsmaterial, said toy building plate being provided with coupling means inthe form of cylindrical coupling studs that protrude from both sides.This prior art toy building plate is primarily intended for being cutinto smaller portions to form smaller toy building elements. Since thematerial thickness is small, the toy building elements made will becomparatively easily bent which is also one of the objects of theseprior art toy building elements. The coupling studs of the toy buildingplate are arranged in regular rows which means that plane areas areprovided between the rows that inherently serve as bending lines whichmake the cut-out toy building elements easy to bend along said planeareas between the rows of coupling studs.

If a toy building plate or toy building elements made from the toybuilding plate is/are used on a plane support, the downwardly protrudingcoupling studs impart a certain height to the plate/element but there isa risk that the plate/element tips if building is performed close to theedge of the plate/element since there are no supports along the edge butonly further towards the centre of the plate/element.

It is the object of the present invention to provide a vacuum-shaped toybuilding plate of a certain height and exhibiting an increased rigiditycompared to vacuum-shaped toy building plates known in the art, andwhich is stable no matter where on the building surface building iscarried out.

This is obtained by configuring the toy building plate featured in theintroductory part in such a manner that, along its periphery, the toybuilding plate is provided with a downwardly protruding flange havingthe same downward extent as said spacer elements.

Hereby a toy building plate is obtained that exhibits a higher degree ofrigidity than the prior art toy building plates and which is also morestable for building purposes since the downwardly protruding flange andthe spacer elements have the same extent downwards which means that theinterior edge of the toy building plate as well as its exterior edge aresupported when used on a plane support.

Preferably said coupling means in the building surface of the toybuilding plate are arranged in rows and the downwardly protruding spacerelements are so positioned that at least some of the natural bendinglines, i.e. the plane areas between the rows of coupling means, areinterrupted. Hereby further rigidity is imparted to the toy buildingplate.

According to a further embodiment, the downwardly protruding spacerelements are in the form of coupling studs for interconnecting with toybuilding elements having complementary coupling means. Such downwardlyprotruding spacer elements enable novel building opportunities since thetoy building plates may hereby be mounted on top of other toy buildingelements.

The coupling means in the building surface of the toy building plate arepreferably each in the form of a cylindrical coupling stud or onecentral coupling stud with an outer coupling area situated around same.

The invention will now be explained in further detail with reference tothe accompanying drawings, wherein

FIG. 1 is a partially sectional view of a prior art toy building plate,

FIG. 2 is a partially sectional view of the toy building plate accordingto the invention,

FIGS. 3 and 4 illustrate various positionings for the downwardly facingspacer elements, and

FIG. 5 illustrates a further, alternative embodiment of a toy buildingplate according to the invention.

FIG. 1 illustrates a vacuum-shaped toy building plate 1 as taught byDK-A-129,080 wherein a corner has been cut off to allow a crosssectional view of the toy building plate 1.

The toy building plate 1 comprises a building surface 2 provided withupwardly protruding coupling means in the form of coupling studs 3 andwith corresponding downwardly protruding coupling studs 4. The couplingstuds 3,4 are arranged in rows and are positioned equidistantly withregard to the respective rows as well as to the individual couplingstuds 3,4 in each row. The building plate 2 as such is constituted bythe plate material between the coupling studs 3,4 and as indicated bythe hatched belt, uninterrupted belts of plane regions 5 occur betweenthe rows of coupling studs 3,4. The toy building plate 1 is made of acomparatively thin plastics material and therefore at is readily bentalong the plane areas 5 that constitute natural bending lines for thetoy building plate.

FIG. 2 illustrates a toy building plate 6 according to the invention.Like the toy building plate 1 shown in FIG. 1, the toy building plate 6comprises a building surface 7 provided with upwardly protrudingcoupling means in the form of coupling studs 8 and with downwardlyprotruding spacer elements 9 that may be provided in the form of actualcoupling studs which feature, however, is not decisive to the invention.

As will appear, the toy building plate 6 is provided with a downwardlyprotruding flange 10 along its periphery, and the downward extent ofthis flange 10 corresponds to the extent of the spacer elements 9thereby allowing the toy building plate 6 to use its flange 10 as wellas its spacer elements 9 as support when arranged on a plane supportwhich will often be the case during play with the toy building plate.

The flange 10 along the periphery imparts increased rigidity to the toybuilding plate 6 compared to the toy building plate 1 according to theprior art. In addition to this, the flange 10 has a stabilising effectwhen the toy building plate 6 is used as support when other toy buildingelements are used for building purposes, since it establishes supportalong the entire periphery thereby preventing the toy building plate 6from tipping about the outermost downwardly protruding spacer elements9.

According to a preferred embodiment, the downwardly protruding spacerelements 9 are so arranged that at least some of the plane areas 5 knownfrom the prior art shown in FIG. 1 are interrupted by the spacerelements 8. Hereby increased rigidity is imparted to the toy buildingplate 6, since one or more of the natural bending lines is/are herebyinterrupted.

In the embodiment shown in FIG. 2, the spacer elements 9 are arranged inthe diagonal between the upwardly protruding coupling studs 8. Thispositioning serves to ensure that each of the spacer elements interruptsa through-going plane area 5 in two mutually perpendicular directions.

Moreover the diameter of the spacer elements 9 is so dimensioned thattheir vertical wall portions 11 continue upwards into—or at leastsubstantially continue upwards into—the vertical wall portions 12 of thecoupling studs 8 as shown in the cross section of FIG. 2. Thisconfiguration of the toy building plate 6 means that no uninterruptedplane areas occur in the diagonal direction between the coupling studs8.

In FIG. 3, the toy building plate 6 is illustrated from above, and thebuilding surface 7, the coupling studs 8 and the spacer elements 9 willappear clearly. The regular distribution of the spacer elements 9 acrossthe toy building plate 6 will appear clearly since they are arranged inthe diagonal direction between the coupling studs 8. This positioning incombination with their diameters mean that no plane areas 5 that extendall the way across the toy building plate 6 between the rows of couplingstuds 8, a feature that imparts a considerably increased rigidity to thetoy building plate 6.

FIG. 4 illustrates an alternative toy building plate 13 in which thepositioning and dimensions of the spacer elements 9 have been changed,each of them having a smaller diameter and being arranged between twocoupling studs in the same row. This positioning of the spacer elements9 interrupts the through-going plane areas 5, too, thereby impartingincreased rigidity to the toy building plate 13.

FIG. 5 illustrates a further alternative embodiment of the toy buildingplate 14 according to the invention. In this embodiment, the couplingstuds on the top surface of the toy building plate 14 have aconfiguration that differs substantially from the embodiments shown inFIGS. 1-4. Here the coupling studs consist of a central coupling stud 15and an outer coupling area 16 located about same. The spacer elements 9are arranged between the outer coupling areas 16 and with the diametershown of the spacer elements 9, the plane areas 5 have been interrupted.

The positioning and dimensions of the spacer elements 9 may of course bevaried as desired, their primary object being to create a distance tothe support when the toy building plate is used. If a higher degree ofrigidity is desired than the one imparted to the toy building plate bythe flange 10 along its periphery, the spacer elements 9 mayadvantageously be so configured and positioned that their extentinterrupt the plane areas 5 known from the prior art.

The examples exclusively feature circular spacer elements 9 but, ofcourse, they may also have other configurations, e.g. be in the shape ofelongated areas between the coupling studs.

What is claimed is:
 1. A vacuum-shaped toy building plate with aflexible plane building surface, said toy building plate comprising:upwardly protruding coupling studs for being interconnected with toybuilding elements with coupling means which are complementary to saidcoupling studs, and downwardly protruding spacer elements providingheight to the toy building plate, said spacer elements being in the formof downwardly extending columns which are, at their downmost ends,closed and, at their uppermost ends, open, wherein along its periphery,the toy building plate is provided with a downwardly protruding flangehaving the same downward extent as said spacer elements, and wherein, inrelation to at least one straight edge of the toy building plate, saidcoupling studs are arranged in a minimum of one row parallel with saidstraight edge, at least one of said spacer elements being offset fromeach of said row(s) of coupling studs.
 2. A vacuum-shaped toy buildingplate according to claim 1 wherein the downwardly protruding spacerelements are in the form of coupling studs for being interconnected withtoy building elements having complementary coupling means.
 3. Avacuum-shaped toy building plate according to claim 1 wherein each ofsaid upwardly extending coupling studs is in the form of a cylindricalcoupling stud.
 4. A vacuum-shaped toy building plate according to claim3, wherein an area of the plane building surface around each of saidcylindrical coupling studs protrude upwards to form an outer couplingarea that is connectable with toy building elements with coupling meanswhich are complementary to said outer coupling area.
 5. A method ofmanufacturing a toy building plate according to any one of claims 1,3-4and 7, wherein the toy building plate is manufactured by vacuum-shaping.6. A vacuum-shaped toy building plate with a flexible plane buildingsurface comprising: upwardly protruding coupling studs for beinginterconnected with toy building elements with coupling means which arecomplementary to said coupling studs, and downwardly protruding spacerelements providing height to the toy building plate, said spacerelements being in the form of downwardly extending columns which are, attheir downmost ends, closed and, at their uppermost ends, open, saidspacer elements being offset from said coupling studs, wherein along itsperiphery, the toy building plate is provided with a downwardlyprotruding flange having the same downward extent as said spacerelements; each of said upwardly extending coupling studs is in the formof a cylindrical coupling stud, and an area of the plane buildingsurface around each of said cylindrical coupling studs protrude upwardsto form an outer coupling area that is connectable with toy buildingelements with coupling means which are complementary to said outercoupling area.